The Online Environment and the Construction of Loyalty

Abstract

Throughout the years, the marketing subject at universities has passed through changes generated by the need of satisfying the consumers. One of the most important alterations refers to the change of emphasis in acquiring new clients towards the focus in the maintenance of the company's present clients. In that sense, as civilization enlarges the knowledge about subjects and as the world advances, new questionings arise. Among them are the understanding of how loyalty may be built in on-line environment and how the loyalty in off-line environment could be affected by the entrance of such companies into the electronic market. With such aspects in mind, the present work has the objective of showing the present stage of the study that has been carried out on loyalty, describing the key elements for the generation of loyalty presented in the marketing literature, and discussing the impact of the electronic medium on the clients' loyalty as well as identifying the factors that influenced the construction of the on-line loyalty.